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Ukraine's record candidate field amid missile treaty row
Summary
On 6 February 2019, a retrospective look at a week that combined a record number of presidential bids in Kyiv with a nuclear arms dispute between Washington and Moscow.
What did the first days of February 2019 look like from a Ukrainian vantage point? By 6 February 2019, two separate stories had defined the week: a crowded race for the presidency at home and a breakdown in a Cold War-era arms agreement between the United States and Russia.
A record field in Kyiv
On 3 February 2019, the Central Election Commission finished accepting documents from candidates for the Ukrainian presidency. In total, 90 people submitted applications, a record number for Ukraine. That figure set the scale of the contest before any vetting or registration decisions had been made.
The missile treaty unravels
Abroad, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty moved towards collapse. On 1 February 2019, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States was suspending its role in the agreement. The treaty dated from 1987, was made with the USSR and, by extension, its successor state Russia, and banned both countries from possessing or testing nuclear and conventional intermediate-range missiles and their launchers. Washington cited Russian non-compliance.
On 2 February 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded by suspending Russia's involvement in the treaty. He said Russia would begin developing new missiles, framing the step as a reaction to the American decision to withdraw.
Two tracks, one week
The two developments were unconnected in the reporting of the time, and nothing in it tied the Ukrainian candidate filings to the arms dispute. Still, they unfolded in the same days. Ukraine was preparing for an election with an unusually large number of declared candidates, while the two largest nuclear powers were dismantling a bilateral limit on missiles.
Some scholars and journalists have used terms such as Second Cold War or Cold War II to describe heightened tensions between the United States and Russia in the post-Cold War era, and the treaty dispute was filed under that heading in contemporary listings. Others have discouraged the label. Either way, by 6 February 2019 both the American and Russian sides had publicly stepped back from the treaty.
